Xero Partner Hub: A Practical Guide to Switching
Xero is consolidating Xero HQ, Xero Practice Manager and Xero Tax into a single platform. Australian practices that have not opted in will be moved automatically from September 2026.
This guide sets out what is changing, what is not, the practical challenges where the rubber hits the road, and what to do before the switch.
Current as at 6 August 2026
Xero is actively developing Partner Hub and shipping changes regularly. Several of the gaps noted below are already in development and some may be resolved by the time you read this. Verify the current status before acting.
1. The short version
Same tools, one access point. Partner Hub replaces Xero HQ, Xero Practice Manager and Xero Tax as separate destinations. The functionality carries across. The navigation, homepage and several other screens do not look the same.
It is not optional. Australian practices will be moved automatically from September 2026. You can opt in earlier and control the date, or wait and let Xero pick for you.
There is no migration project. Your clients, jobs, timesheets, WIP, templates and tax returns move with you. Unlike Single Client Record, there is no data mapping exercise and no planned downtime.
Familiarity, not data. A handful of things your team does every day will work differently.
Our view
This is a low-risk change that is easy to under-prepare for. An hour of preparation and one team briefing removes most of the risk of disruption.
2. Changes
Navigation and homepage
One top navigation covers Clients, Insights, Report templates and Tax, plus Jobs, Time and Billing if you have practice management.
The Xero HQ dashboard is replaced by a widget-based homepage. Widgets include an organisation watchlist, bank feed alerts, a bank reconciliation overview, jobs pipeline, time summary, and activity statement and income tax return widgets that surface lodgement errors.
Homepage layout is set per user, not per practice. Each team member configures their own. Widgets can be added, removed and reordered, but not resized.
Single staff record
Staff lists from Xero HQ and from XPM and Xero Tax merge into one record per person, holding information from both. If your two lists do not currently agree, that is worth sorting out before the merge rather than after.
Some practices have already experienced this change independent of Partner Hub.
Clients
A single unified client list replaces the separate HQ and XPM lists - thank goodness. One list-management point worth knowing: client names in Partner Hub are not linked to the connected Xero organisation name. If a client changes name, you need to update it in both places: the Xero organisation subscription, and the client name in practice management.
Tax Manager
A new Tax Manager, currently in beta, brings income tax and BAS into one view with ready-to-start returns, notices of assessment and variance flags alongside your workflow. It is a ground-up rebuild rather than a re-skin, so expect the layout and click paths to differ from the XPM tax manager your team knows today. This is coming later in 2026.
Xero Workpapers
Worth calling out because your team will see it: Workpapers appears in the top navigation whether or not your firm uses it. Xero has built a new workpapers solution with BGL, and it is not a compulsory part of this move. Expect the question from someone on day one if you haven't talked about it.
JAX
JAX chat, Xero's AI assistant, sits on the Partner Hub homepage in beta. It can summarise a client's financials before a meeting and generate insights across your Xero client base, currently up to 500 organisations. This is not yet useful for most practices.
For consideration
This puts an AI widget inside your practice management system, with access to client financial data, on every team member's homepage by default.
If your firm has an AI policy, JAX should be assessed against it. If it does not, this is a reasonable prompt to start thinking about one.
Decide who uses it and for what, before it just appears. If that is something you need help with - our AI consulting work covers it, or contact us.
3. What does not change
Your data. Clients, client groups, jobs, timesheets, WIP, quotes, invoices, tax returns and history are all the same.
Report templates and chart of accounts templates.
Job and workflow structures. Your job templates, states and categories are unchanged.
Client organisation access. Advisor access and permissions to client Xero files are unaffected.
Pricing. Nothing costs anything different because of this change.
4. When
From September 2026.
Who controls the timing
Only your practice's Master Administrator can opt in early. They will also receive the move communications. Xero permits one Master Administrator per practice.
Opting out and reverting is possible during the early access period. Once the general rollout reaches you, the move is permanent.
Should you opt in early?
Yes, if you have capacity in August. Brief the team on your own terms. That is a better experience for your team than Xero changing your environment at a random time.
5. Known limitations
These are the changes that practices moving before you have found disruptive. Statuses are correct as at early August 2026: check the current position rather than relying on this table.
Each item below is linked directly to its idea on the Xero Partner Hub product ideas board, where you can read the discussion, see the live status and add your vote.
Key takeaway, with an example
Bulk actions in Tax Manager were missing at launch. Early firms were opening returns one at a time to lodge them. Xero shipped bulk actions in May 2026.
Two practical things to communicate: do not assume something is permanently broken, and equally, do not assume a gap you have read about has been fixed. Check the current state, and vote for the change you want.
6. Before you are moved
Our suggested actions before moving to Xero Partner Hub:
Confirm your Master Administrator. One person, and only that person, can opt in and will receive Xero's move communications. Most things on this list has to be done by the Master Administrator. If it is a shared inbox such as xero@yourfirm, make sure that inbox is monitored.
Reconcile your two staff lists. Compare Xero HQ staff against XPM and Xero Tax staff. Deactivate inactive staff. Align name spellings and formats - staff may need to update their own names in their profiles. These merge into one record per person, and it is cleaner to resolve mismatches in advance than to unpick duplicates later. If phantom staff have recently appeared in your XPM environment, they're likely from your Xero HQ staff list.
Identify your power users. The people who live in job manager and tax manager all day will feel this most and will find the problems first. Get them into the early access experience, or through Xero's Partner Hub video series, before the rest of the team.
Update your internal documentation. Any SOP, onboarding pack or training video that says "go to Xero HQ, then Clients" needs an update. Menu locations move under the unified navigation.
Decide your position on JAX. Before it appears on every homepage in the firm.
Brief the team. Fifteen minutes covering what is changing, what is not, and the specific friction points in section 5. Distribute this guide if it helps.
Choose your date. Control the timing. Your Master Administrator can opt in to early access directly when ready.
7. Integrated apps
Applications that integrate to Xero Tax & XPM connect through Xero's API, so a change of interface should not break them.
At the date of writing, Xero has not published an integration impact statement for Partner Hub, but we know the single staff record has changed.
FYI has already documented that Xero API changes now synchronise users from both XPM and Xero, and has changed its default so newly synced users arrive in FYI inactive. We have not observed integrations breaking as a result of this change.
So we do not expect your integrations to break, but please check them.
If you haven't got one already, make a list of your connected apps before the move, so you have something to check against. In the first week after the move, confirm each one is still operating as expected, particularly anything that syncs staff / user records (FYI, SuiteFiles, Vinyl, and others).
8. Your first week on Partner Hub
Confirm every integration is still syncing, staff records especially.
Check merged staff records are correct rather than duplicated, and that permissions and client access came across as expected.
Encourage each team member to set up their own homepage - layout is per user and is not inherited from the practice.
Collect issues in one place. Anything blocking or disruptive should be put on Xero Product Ideas by the practice - check whether someone else has raised it first - and get the whole team voting. Xero does respond to volume.
Try not to rebuild entire workflows in the first month. Some of what feels wrong is unfamiliarity, and some is a development gap Xero are actively working on.
9. Resources
Xero Central. Search "Xero Partner Hub" at central.xero.com.
Overview and video series. xero.com/au/campaign/partner-hub.
Video guides for briefing the team. Two walkthroughs, split by what your practice runs today: if you have been using Xero HQ, or if you have been using HQ, Xero Tax and XPM. Useful for briefing the team, before you opt in.
Xero Product Ideas, Partner Hub board. productideas.xero.com is the best source on what is and is not working, and where to vote for what you want.
10. More Help
If you would like us to carry out some of the actions in this guide, get in touch. And if Partner Hub has raised a question you want a second opinion on, we are happy to have the conversation.
The short version
Your data moves with you and nothing is being migrated. The risk is familiarity, not data loss. Confirm your Master Administrator, reconcile your two staff lists, decide your position on JAX, brief the team for fifteen minutes, and pick your own date for cutover.